I'm a junior instructor in TKD (1st degree black belt, been teaching for about 1 year). I mostly work with white and yellow belts so I have a large number of younger kids. In general, we don't let kids start until they are 5 years old. However, all children have unique abilities and there are exceptions to the rule. My school does an introductory class that is one on one with the owner (7th degree, former olympic coach and Olympian) where he evaluates their readiness. The biggest things he looks for is the ability to follow directions for a period of time. If we give even the most basic instructions and kids can't follow them, then it's very difficult to teach them.

I would inquire with any school you are looking at to see if they have a similar setup. A school that is willing to wait or turn away students that aren't ready yet is going to be less likely to just want your money. This is an education, not just a sports activity.

Games (yes, some are on other platforms but they are still really good on iOS):Jetpack JoyrideRick O'SheaInfinity Blade (2 comes out next week)OsmosRolandoCrayon PhysicsWorld of GooAngry Birds (all 3 versions)Tiny WingsiBlast MokiDoodle JumpWords with Friends (my wife is seriously addicted to this one)

I don't have an issue with this exactly. I don't like the implementation where you pop back and forth into the tuner after each string. If you go into the tuner, it should just stay there to check them all.

I've read the discussion above on the audio setup. Everything I'm reading above seems to blame audio sync issues on the time it takes to decode audio. In all the music games I've played, my issue has been from the video processing and not the audio. When I got a new TV with a game mode, my audio sync issues went away for the most part (I don't notice it in games anymore at least).

My setup is with component video out (no hdmi on my xbox) and digital optical out to my home theater: the "Better" in the rocksmith poster.

My AV receiver has the ability to delay the audio signal up to 200 ms to account for the amount of time the video takes to render/scale on the HD set. It does NOT have any ability to delay the video signal. Once I got my new TV with game mode I set this to 0 ms and haven't had any issues. On my old HDTV, the video scaling/smoothing was causing a delay and I had to add a delay of around 70 ms with the earlier versions of guitar hero/rock band. When rock band 2 came out with it's automatic guitar syncing, most of the problems I had went away for that game.

My point is this: I believe that audio decoding the dolby digital signal should be near negligible on most AV receivers. Maybe I'm just lucky here with my older receiver (no hdmi on it either) but the problems I had were always video delays. There is way more video data to display/scale/smooth/render than audio. The newer HD sets minimize that with "game mode" settings where they don't do that much processing on the video signal.

Use case 1: If you are setup where the audio is coming from your TV because your hdmi cable from the xbox goes there first and then allows you to split the audio out to your receiver, then your TV will be introducing a delay into the audio signal because it is taking into account the amount of time it takes to render the video and delaying the audio to match. I figured this out when I was splitting my audio from my directv. The audio was always before the video when I had the TOS link directly from the directv receiver to the AV receiver. When I switched the audio to come from the TV via the TOSlink output it has (directv connected to TV via hdmi), it has always been in sync. I figured out the TV is delaying the audio signal to match. The delay wasn't consistent depending on the type of signal my directv was processing (SD vs. HD sets) so I had to keep changing it until I let the TV handle it.

I don't do this setup for gaming because the video signal is consistent (xbox puts out 720p non-stop, no extra processing in game mode) and I was playing rhythm games all the time. I haven't played a rhythm game in a long time but the forum effect made me get this one. I can't call this a rhythm game though. It's a guitar trainer that makes practicing fun.

I'd go see this if all the bands promised to only play songs they released pre-1990 (I'd give Anthrax an extra year to play songs from Persistence of Time). Otherwise, I would just get depressed at how awful they have become.

DTV replaced my HD DVR receiver recently for free because one of the ports went out on the one I had. Technician told me it was the latest/greatest, an HR24-500. It's actually quite decent. I was having a lot of the same issues you guys were having (i.e. slow menu response time, some dropped recordings) with my older one. My relatives have comcast and that DVR sucks big time.

It's still no TiVo though. I used to have all TiVo on directv and it was better. Thinking about going with the TiVo upgrade when it eventually comes out.

I never have issues with my local Gamestop. They know me when I walk in and we always have nice conversations about gaming when in there. Even the gutting doesn't bother me. It actually saves me from having to break the stupid security stickers on XBox games.

Agreed. They are pretty good except that one guy that seems like a used car salesman with a bit of the slicked back/slightly unwashed hair look. He's got that "raise a cautionary eyebrow/you're funeral" look down pat. He always accompanies it with that shoulder shrug that means "you're loss". I try to avoid him every time I go in there.

I don't have hdmi connections but I do have an optical cable for my sound. I've got surround sound speakers in 2 different rooms (I move the xbox back and forth). One is a logitech dolby digital standalone speaker system and the other is my denon receiver. I have found that sometimes the dolby digital signal in both rooms for rock band games and other 360 games won't "sync up" for lack of a better term. It comes across as either no sound or "detecting input" depending which setup I'm on. I generally have to change the input source and change it back. Because it happens in both setups, I blame it on the dolby digital on the xbox. Note that I have Rock Band configured for Dolby Digital 5.1. The default is to have that off (and subsequently stereo) in all the Rock Band games. If you haven't changed that configuration, maybe you are seeing an effect of switching from 5.1 at the xbox menu to stereo in the game and your receiver not being able to "sync up" as well.

Friend of mine down the street had model rockets and I participated in a few of his events including a Comanche 3 launch. It took quite a long time for me to convince him to launch it after he had built it. It was very impressive.

We were bored one afternoon and attached a rocket to my landspeeder and sent it down it down the street. Slightly off center, it went about 50 feet and then started spinning crazily. Luckily, no fire engines were needed.

I'm a colored belt in TKD. I'm curious about the "no one has failed" comment. Has no one "failed" because they haven't been allowed to test unless they were ready? Or, does everyone test and they basically just pass everybody? The former is the way my dojang (Korean term) runs things. They don't have anyone try to pass the tests in front of everybody if they know they aren't ready. Saves embarrassment all around. I have heard of a few failures at the black belt test. The reasons I've heard for those failures are not from not knowing the curriculum but instead a lack of "black belt attitude" demonstrated at the test.

And speaking from a student's perspective, I would feel nervous sparring against you as well. Not from a "I might get hurt" perspective but more from a "I might get pwned" perspective. I get the impression you are pretty darn good from other posts made on this board (not necessarily by you...but you can tell if someone knows what they are doing by the way they talk/write a lot of times).

Good luck on your CF walk. I do one every year (well....most years) the weekend of Mother's Day. My sister had CF. It's always a good time to get together with my mom and do the walk right at Mother's Day.

I'll be praying for you. It's a difficult disease. The science has come a long way though and I keep thinking that someday soon there will be a cure.

Not sure if this is spoiler or not but putting the tag just in case. Regarding characters in the end mission:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Decisions that impact who dies or not on the suicide mission: which ship upgrades you decide to NOT purchase, which loyalty missions you decide to NOT complete, and who you choose to do some of the end missions. Some people just aren't suited for the task they've been given.

Note, even Shephard can die but that's a game over. And no...this isn't a normal you were shot and died kind of thing.

I got it with the hardened edition as well. My only real beef so far is the controls for leaning. I recall, maybe incorrectly, that I used to peak around walls by hitting lean and moving over using wasd by hitting E and D (or Q and A for going left) at the same time. This doesn't map well to using the D-pad and the left stick on the 360 controller. Just can't do both at the same time that easily.

IT is such a broad term that I think it's hard to answer your question. With respect to software development jobs, I find that there are 2 kinds of people in this industry: those that have "it" and those that don't.

Specifically, it takes a special breed of person to be a software developer. If you have the natural mindset for development and a decent work ethic, you will always be able to find a job if your specific circumstances end up costing you your job. For example: if you're working for a large govt. contractor and the program gets wiped out due to some decision. You will probably lose your job. However, there are enough jobs out there that you can find another rather quickly IF you have the talent and more specifically, the reputation for being a good developer. Note, I've never been laid off but was able to see the writing on the wall ahead of time to find another gig.

There are many people who work in software development that are "mediocre". In other words, they have the skills to do specific types of development (i.e. I can do a web page with some form validation. I'm a software developer!). However, they don't understand programming concepts like multi-threading, deadlocking, race conditions, data structures, or memory management, etc.

The entire band is actually on stage in their older form. They only look young because they don't show wrinkles.

The end of the game has an "early years" section where you truly do get to see them in their younger form...well....except Wolfgang who took the DeLorean back in time to jam with them. Apparently Michael Anthony was cold-cocked in the parking lot after he tried to kiss Valerie.

- shaggy

P.S. For the Van Halen fans among us, this is a good addition to the genre. I had one of those "dopey grin moments" playing Hot For Teacher despite not doing so well on that song.

My storm sets up a separate email icon for each account I have. The messages "icon" is designed to be a holding point for every message your device gets (i.e. your corp email, gmail, txt, missed calls notifications). I don't believe you can limit its functionality. My only suggestion would be to let messages do what it does but you can "hide" that icon. Then add the icon for your corporate email. You can then setup different notifications for that email account. For example, my corporate email is a vibrate notification but my personal email is a little ding sound (it happens much less frequently than work and is usually one of my friends).

As previously stated, there are several OO'ers from the Boulder neck of the woods so you might want to ping over there. I currently drive up there from Castle Rock (south of Denver) once a week because of my job. I lived and worked up in that area for about 5 years before moving to my current residence (back in the late 90s).

The biggest issue with working in Boulder is getting into and out of the city because most people who do work there don't live there. It's a pretty expensive place to live compared to the rest of the front range. Access to the town is restricted because of the way the roads are laid out and all the open space surrounding it.

The whole Denver to Boulder corridor along US-36 has built up with a lot of tech companies over the past 15 years. I'd also throw in locations in the Lodo area of Denver. It is actually a pretty good place to find a job at the moment compared to the rest of the country. Most of the positions will be in start-ups and not established companies however.

I need a new vehicle but I had my heart set on some kind of double-cab small pickup because we are still in the process of landscaping our yard. The Toyota Tacoma fits the bill but I don't get the required 4 mpg better from my 96 4runner.

There are rumors of a hybrid tacoma in the 2010 model year though. Here's hoping the vouchers aren't all used up by then.

Anyone have experience with a double cab like small pickup with better mpg that they could recommend?